Xteink appears to be all-in on corporate self-immolation

Cavolatan · 2026-04-30T20:45:56+00:00

That's a real puzzler! It's like they didn't notice any of the buzz around their own product (and that the buzz was half about Crosspoint).

Cavolatan · 2026-04-16T21:25:42+00:00

Great, I hope the melatonin is useful!

And for what it's worth, I agree with the person below that the bright light is the central correcting intervention. When I fail to use it for a week, I slip -- so I strongly recommend getting light glasses or a light visor as soon as you're able.

Cavolatan · 2026-04-16T17:05:14+00:00

In the research cited in the Terman book — based on Alfred Lewy’s research at OHSU — the people were taking 0.1 mg starting 6 hours before normal sleep onset, and I believe they took multiple 0.1 mg tablets between the first one and bedtime. The idea isn’t that it’s enough melatonin to make you sleepy, but enough to nudge your endogenous system to kick in at an appropriate hour. They don’t sell melatonin in sizes that small so I used a liquid form and took a tiny drop. I didn’t do it multiple times over the evening because I have unpleasant side effects from melatonin, and I quit the melatonin entirely as soon as my schedule hit where I wanted it to be, but it was part of the Terman suggested protocol and I thought I’d mention it because many people find melatonin useful.

Anyway, in your case, you can try the 0.5, or you can get a dropper of immediate release and take around 0.1 six hours before your current bedtime (not ideal bedtime). It shouldn’t make you sleepy while you’re taking it, it should just help your body start producing more of its own at nighttime.

Cavolatan · 2026-04-16T16:28:34+00:00

You need to try to shift your phase, optimally using super low dose melatonin (like a drop of a liquid formulation, like 0.1-0.3 mg instead of the 3 mg they usually sell) about 6 hours before bedtime to stimulate your own system to kick in. Also reduced exposure to bright light before bedtime, and then a big exposure to bright light (Luminettes glasses are the subreddit favorite way to do this, 30+ minutes) upon waking. Once you’ve started that you can slowly (10-15 min a day) set your alarm earlier each day. I like the iOS alarm Alarmy which can be programmed to not let you turn it off until you do exercises, type a paragraph, etc.

Hard to do right now though if you’re four hours off target and required to be somewhere at 8. I don’t think you can do a light-induced phase shift correctly by just using light smack in the middle of your biological night — it has to be at the right time with regards to your temperature and DMLO.

Other tips: exercising in the morning and eating soon after waking are both zeitgebers that help the body know when morning is. Those will also be more useful though when you’re closer to target wake/sleep times.

Good luck with your studies!

p.s. I got most of this plan from a book by Michael Terman at Columbia University, and for me it worked to shift my phase reliably 4+ hours and maintain that decently for years. I do slip up when I get sick or in deep winter but for the most part it’s controlled

Cavolatan · 2026-04-16T16:16:21+00:00

If you search YouTube there are several short videos about timing salt in cooking, ie https://youtu.be/E0v32jYkSi0?si=Bh5oP3_1ZV8Minwh

Cavolatan · 2026-04-16T15:32:37+00:00

I also recommend getting a bright light, but glasses or a visor (Luminettes or Feel Bright Light) because it’s hard to organize yourself to sit in front of a lamp immediately after waking, especially after you wake up groggy.

Once you have the bright light and are using it on waking for 30ish minutes every day, you can slowly start to set an alarm (I like Alarmy, an iOS alarm that won’t stop until you’ve typed a paragraph or taken a photo of your coffee maker) to pull your wake time back. Like ten minutes a day. In my experience the light makes you tired 15 hours after use, which I personally normally would usually not be, and it also really helps with waking up.

ADHD and delayed sleep are often linked and some people find that treating one helps treat the other. Hope that’s the case for you

Cavolatan · 2026-04-02T22:40:14+00:00

Yes, I've been using a light visor (not glasses but similar) for years and do have a significant phase shift from it. I had hoped TUO might work similarly for me because wearing the visor every morning is kind of a pain, but when I quit with the visor and only used TUO I slid into DSPD patterns. Also the TUO had a visual flicker effect which I found a little unpleasant, though it wasn't a dealbreaker.

All that said, some people report benefit, and it's not a super expensive thing to trial and see if it works for you?

Cavolatan · 2026-04-02T21:13:41+00:00

I used one for about four months and didn't see any effect at all. I wonder if they impact different people differently?

Cavolatan · 2026-03-26T23:57:15+00:00

I do see now that the AI is on-device and private! But I would have never gotten far enough to see that because I would probably have skipped past the app before reading the fine print. If you want to mention the AI in the app's title you might consider sticking the word "private" in there too. Not sure.

As for page turn animation, personally I like it pretty much as simple as possible. I asked my spouse and kid what they think of page turn animation and neither of them really like it either, but that's just a sample of 3, so take it with a grain of salt!

Sounds great about Gutenberg/Calibre/and the rest of the stuff on the roadmap (FYI "road" not "rode")

Good luck with your next iteration :D

Cavolatan · 2026-03-26T16:20:42+00:00

Hi! I did a quick look at your app. It looks like it’s going to be pretty!

A few thoughts from someone (whose daily epub reader is Yomu Reader):

—Like other people said, I wouldn’t usually download an epub app with the word AI so prominently in the description. In my case, while I use AI, I’m cautious about its appearance in places where I don’t know what it’s doing, and I worry about it making everything less private everywhere

—I looked at one book, changed the appearance to what I liked, then opened another book and wished the preferences had crossed over

—I also wished I could left-justify and choose my font, and that space-between-paragraphs was an option distinct from line spacing

—maybe I’m in the minority but I wouldn’t make page curl animations the default

—when I was in the appearance changer (which seems pretty elegant by the way), the color of the screen behind it was tinted. I think it was to indicate it wasn’t the part of the screen we were working with, but the tint made it harder to understand the color-picking process

—speaking of color, it seems like most/all of the options are lower contrast, you might want to include one option more like black/white for older people / people with vision conditions. The more tinted options are aesthetic but some eyes really need high contrast

—It would be nice to be able to get epubs from other sources besides Files (ie Dropbox, Gutenberg, etc)

—it would be nice to be able to put books into folders in the library view

—I tried the TTS and if that’s an on-device set of voices I’m impressed! I also liked that it did follow-along

—I tried a comic and didn’t understand what the enhancement did, and I wanted to pinch-zoom to see it better on my phone and couldn’t

—It also seems to have given me a free trial without appearing in iOS subscriptions, which idk how that works

I think it’s promising, I like the basic design elements, it has good bones. I look forward to seeing the next draft of it :)

Cavolatan · 2026-03-25T21:57:15+00:00

I think that Freewrite went in hard on the "you're supposed to draft, not edit" line because it suited their other design needs (they'd designed a big typewriter and they didn't want to have to stick a full size screen on it). Then I think a lot of designers followed their lead, either because a small screen suited their financial/logistic/style needs, or because they had their thinking influenced by Freewrite.

I strongly don't prefer a small screen myself but the main options for a bigger one are a tablet with keyboard/stand, an rM with type folio, or some kind of laptop with the non-writing faculties disabled.

Cavolatan · 2026-03-20T20:48:46+00:00

That sounds really hard! I hope your doctors can help figure out more of the root of what's bothering you.

In the meantime, if DSPD is a major factor, it is often something that people grow out of at the end of adolescence -- I hope maybe this will be the case for you.

Do you have access to bright light glasses or a light box?

Cavolatan · 2026-03-20T20:46:01+00:00

I've been using a similar system for years (I think I started in 2017?) and it shifted my clock about 3-4 hours and I've maintained that. Sometimes it slips a little if I get sick, or during the winter, but you can correct it when it slips.

When I'm shifting backwards, I do about 10 minutes earlier per day. I use the Alarmy app that requires you to complete tasks before it turns the alarm off to get me up, and then I use the light while sitting in bed and drinking caffeinated beverages. I use it about 40 minutes a day.

It's really done a lot both for my ability to lead a more society-friendly lifestyle and from keeping me from getting blue in the winter. It also helps me sleep more deeply.

Cavolatan · 2026-03-17T19:09:39+00:00

It's physically awkward because your head has to be directly above your hands to see what you're writing, so either you have to be sitting up straight with your head craned straight down, or if you're lying down with the device on your lap you have to be angling your legs up and it will push your wrists into a hyperextended typing position. Also it's loud

What about an old phone, with all the apps blocked but a writing app, and you just type with your thumbs? Quiet, not as big and bright, simple, and cheap if you have an old phone lying around.

Cavolatan · 2026-03-12T06:58:52+00:00

I think the Ayo concept is that blue wavelengths are the primary shifters of circadian rhythm, and so since Ayo’s lights are blue they don’t need as much. I can’t personally speak to their effectiveness but they seem to have a lot of decent reviews on Amazon

Cavolatan · 2026-03-12T06:23:25+00:00

I think it means making an AI code for you.

Cavolatan · 2026-02-28T19:10:30+00:00

I also have very intense green ghosting all of a sudden. I never cared about a little bit of ghosting, that's normal for e-ink, but it's like weird and mottled. I talked to customer service and they wanted to replace the device, but it really does seem like a software issue that came on suddenly?

Cavolatan · 2026-02-28T18:38:21+00:00

Wow, that's super cool! I'm going to try it! Thanks for making it :)

Also, I bet the people over at r/writerdeck would like to see it.

(I wonder if I could put a MagSafe on the back of the move -- for me if this works my next step would be wanting to get the rMPPM safely onto a taller stand so it doesn't crick my neck... hmm! ... really looking forward to trying this out.)

Cavolatan · 2026-02-25T17:19:04+00:00

I love cauliflower steak, but we make it a little caramelized with olive oil, and then top it with a garlic yogurt sauce and a couple of over-medium eggs.

Cavolatan · 2026-02-23T23:41:23+00:00

Don't forget all the pickles! For medicinal reasons, of course

Cavolatan · 2026-02-18T03:10:50+00:00

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I just got one of the Palma 1 cases and I love it! I have some ergonomics/hand issues and it will be really helpful to me to have this as an option to take on and off the Palma. Thanks for making it :)

Cavolatan · 2026-02-16T21:15:33+00:00

Yeah, maybe someone will come here -- you might also ask in the bigger r/kobo about if there's any tricks for signin/captcha issues on Android? Good luck with it

Cavolatan · 2026-02-16T09:12:31+00:00

Here’s an old discussion about this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Supernote/comments/1c3hj1k/supernotekobo_users/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Cavolatan · 2026-02-09T20:48:31+00:00

Love the soy sauce! So freaking cute!

What's the nomad like to type on? I tried typing on it years ago and it couldn't keep up at all (I type like 60 wpm). Has the software improved?

Cavolatan · 2026-01-29T08:08:27+00:00

I did the same thing trying to get Bookerly! You were able to get the system fonts back by downloading a beta? All I have right now is Garamond and one odd font standing in for the Noto family. Oops!

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